The Contract

by Gerald Seymour

  miles west of London. It had taken the Deputy-Under-Secretary more than three hours to negotiate the winding roads with only his taciturn personal guard for company.

  An ugly building it was too. Ridiculous that this should be the best that the nation could provide for the Prime Minister's country retreat.

  The official cars were parked in an orderly line in the courtyard at the back. The dull cigarette flares betrayed the chauffeurs who waited for the dinner to be finished, the guests to depart. The Deputy-Under-Secretary was shown to the Long Gallery and requested to wait.

  Would he like a drink, a cigar, the day's newspapers?

  He wanted nothing, only the ear of the Prime Minister.

  The dinner party was continuing, the Prime Minister was hosting the Trade Delegation of the German Democratic Republic, and would come as soon as was convenient now that the Deputy-Under-Secretary had arrived. He smiled ruefully at the young man who had escorted him into the house. He was content to wait until it was suitable for the Prime Minister to leave his table. The great irony, the coincidence that could make him vomit . . . East Germans munching the food and swilling HMG's wine on the floor below and offering their dining room toasts of comradeship and friendship and co-operation. • • and Mawby berserk beside a telephone in Berlin, and an agent loose in Magdeburg, and a mission triggered, and damn little but catastrophe in prospect.

  The Prime Minister swept through the door. A brandy glass for an orb, a cigar for a sceptre. A little flushed, a little loud, a little overwhelming.

  Saturday night, the night off, the night without crisis, and the Deputy-Under-Secretary recognised the inroads of the decanter and the bottle.

  'What can I do for you, my friend ?'

  The Deputy-Under-Secretary sketched the news that had been relayed to him by Century House.

  'What am I supposed to bloody well do ?'

  ' I thought you should know the situation, sir, and I've been very frank.'

  ' I had a damned promise from you, Deputy-Under- Secretary. I remember your words, you told me risk had been eliminated . . . that's what you told me ... it was a bloody lie . . .' And his eyes rolled and his brow furrowed, and he sought to concentrate his resentment.

  'Everything you were told yesterday, sir, we believed at that time to be true.'

  ' I told you myself, I told you to cancel it. I gave that instruction.'

  'And after deliberation with Cabinet Secretary you changed your mind, sir.'

  'You're a crafty bugger, Deputy-Under-Secretary, you've trapped me . .

  . You tricked me, you've landed me. I'm not afraid of taking responsibility for my decisions, but I damn well expect the briefings to be straight. I've the right to demand that.' The Prime Minister's anger was sudden.

  'We have to face the fact, sir, that there can be repercussions. They will be questioning this man with whom we have dealt. We have to be prepared to deny their allegations. We may have to ride a bit of a storm.'

  'The run can't be managed ?'

  'At this notice we don't have the paperwork capability. More important, if this man provides them with information then the pick-up zone is compromised.'

  'You have to wind it all up ... P'

  'Yes.'

  'And your man there, what happens to him ?'

  'He has to get clear ... we have to hope that's possible. We'll not know till the morning the extent of the damage.'

  'There's no way to salvage something . . . you can't pull anything back from it?'

  'I'm afraid not, sir.'

  'It's a damned shame. You know I'm really rather sorry. I think I'd started to root a bit for this freelance fellow of yours. Things are going to be horrid for him, I suppose.'

  'That's fair comment.'

  The Prime Minister shrugged, tried to focus his eyes on the Deputy-Under-Secretary. '. . . Are you sure you won't have a drink yourself?'

  'Thank you, sir, no. I'm going back to London. I ought to be on the road

  ... I am desperately sorry, Prime Minister.'

  'It's a damned shame.'

  The fool doesn't understand, the Deputy-Under-Secretary thought.

  Getting high, loosening his collar with the German Democratic Republic, sliding his feet under the table. But he would understand in the morning, and God help the Service then.

  He left the Prime Minister to his cigar and his glass, an empty room and the unlit grate, left him ruminating behind closed eyes.

  Time to run for London. Time to be in Communications, to be watching the telexes and reading the telephone transcripts.

  The Deputy-Under-Secretary brooded in the back of his car while the bodyguard drove towards Century House.

  What in Heaven's name had Mawby thought he was at? Six weeks he'd had to plan DIPPER, all the resources and finance he'd asked for. And it ended like this, in crawling apologies to his Prime Minister who was tipsy in the company of the opponents of the day. What a damned mess .

  . . Where did the blame lie, at whose door? He had pushed Mawby hard, pushed him because that was the way to gain the best from an ambitious Assistant Secretary. Pushed him too far... ? He remembered the caution that Mawby had shown in his office on the last night, at the final briefing.

  The

  fiasco

  would

  lie

  on

  the

  desk

  of

  the

  Deputy-Under-Secretary.

  The Prime Minister had called it a damned shame. Not for Mawby, he would be shuffled, slotted into Agriculture and Fisheries or Social Services. A damned shame for the Deputy-Under-Secretary, and he'd called it the best show of the year.

  'Family well. ..?'

  'Very well, sir, thank you. The little girl's just starting school.'

  ' I don't suppose you see much of them.'

  'Not too much, sir, no.'

  Not the problem of the Deputy-Under-Secretary. He would see all he wanted of his wife and sons and his grand- children, all he wanted of his home in the country. He wondered whether the bodyguard would be allocated to his successor.

  Under the lights that hung from poles that were intended to provide the Barleber See Cafeteria with the happy image of a holiday playground, Johnny saw Otto Guttmann and his daughter. Their clothes identified them to him. The only man in a suit, the only girl with a city raincoat over her shoulders. In the shadows, hidden by the perimeter darkness of the patio, Johnny circled them. Better to be safe, better to know if they had buckled in their resolution and gone to the Schutzpolizei. He was very thorough; the lavatories, the back of the bar where the bottle crates were stacked and where a man could hide, the trees around the cafe. He watched the faces of the campers who had come to talk and drink. He saw no surveillance, no watchers.

  He strolled to their table and they managed an unobtrusive welcome.

  Then Johnny went and queued at the bar and came back with two small beers and an orange juice for the Doctor.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As the last of the campers were leaving the cafeteria for their tents and the shutters of the bar came down, Johnny rose from the table, tapped at his watch, motioned to Otto Guttmann and his daughter that it was time.

  The path was dim lit and they walked close to each other and twice the old man bumped into Johnny's back.

  I don't know why they're coming, thought Johnny.

  The contact had been too slight, too transitory for him to make the judgement. Damned if he knew why they were coming. Too old, too settled to be purchased by the trinket attractions of the West. Too cynical to be bought by the elusive breezes of freedom across the fence. Too weary to be lifted only by the promise of a lost son at Checkpoint Alpha.

  Perhaps he would one day comprehend, if at a future moment he met and talked with Otto Guttmann. He had expected more fight from the girl, more hostility.

  All questions, Johnny, and questions are wasted breath.

  They kept to the centre of the gravel path t
hat widened when it left the trees. It was flanked now by low slung holiday tents and there were the lights of portable gas lamps, and the glow of cookers, and radios played the interminable orchestra music of the East's airwaves. A couple were in dispute, another kissed in the privacy of shadow. A child urinated noisily behind a flapping canvas screen. There was the dull, constant drone of the traffic on the autobahn. Johnny leading, Otto Guttmann and Erica following. Where are you taking them, Johnny, to what salvation, into which Shangri-la land? Another question . ..

  No questions, no answers, not until the rear lights blazed away onto the autobahn, not until the train pulled out of Obeisfelde and straddled the Aller Bridge.

  They turned out of the gateway of the Barleber See site, and went along the road that Johnny had walked on the first morning. Seemed a century ago. In front of them the autobahn bridge towered and the racing lights of the cars were suspended, carried on puppet strings above them.

  A hundred yards from the bridge Johnny stopped and he took Otto Guttmann's hand and whispered to him that Erica and he should stay, that he would be gone for only a minute. Johnny hurried forward. The fast, trained reconnaissance. He was clear in his mind what he was looking for. On the open road that passed under the autobahn a waiting police car could not be hidden.

  Johnny came back to them. He reached out in the darkness and his fingers touched the hem of Erica's coat, and she started as if in shock and her hand clutched his wrist. Poor bitch, frightened half to death.

  Gently he pulled his arm clear of her and they started to walk again towards the approach road. Only the autobahn lights to guide him. He would want to see Erica again, Johnny thought, when it was over.

  They came to the approach road that snaked up to the traffic lanes.

  Johnny held one of Otto Guttmann's hands, Erica the other. As if at a signal they scurried forward, bent low. Their feet stampeded on the tarmac and then they were buried in the undergrowth. The branches whipped at their faces, low roots caught at their feet, the grass sank and heaved under their shoes. Johnny knelt and they followed him down.

  Near to the autobahn and the cars and lorries hammered towards Helmstedt above them. The sweet and sticky smell of green leaves and green grass was around them. The damp of the evening clung to their clothes. Johnny moved and wriggled in the bushes before he found the view that he wanted, the road down from the autobahn on which the car would come. He looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes, perhaps a little more or less. He felt Erica against him and the softness of close-clinging summer clothes, and he heard the breathing of her father as if the short run to their hiding place had winded him.

  'Well done,'Johnny whispered. 'Strange carry-on, isn't it? But this is the way it happens. For all the cleverness we end up with grass stains on our knees. Silly.'

  'How long to wait?'

  'Fifteen minutes, Doctor Guttmann. Around midnight, The pick-up has to be open-ended, you can't be exact as to how long it will take the driver from Berlin. They should have practised it, but we still have to wait for them.'

  'What will happen?' Erica's voice pitched high and nervous.

  Johnny playing the expert. Making believe that most weeks of his working year he slogged his way into the German Democratic Republic and lifted the best of the Warsaw Pact scientists . . . 'The car will come off the autobahn at this turn off. When he's turning he will flash his lights once, at the top of the incline. About where we are you'll have seen the

  "Give Way" sign, he stops level with that. The driver will get out and look at his tyres, one by one, the passenger will open the door behind him, the near side. You have to move fast, Erica first, Dr Guttmann, you follow. The car spins and it's back to the autobahn. I wave and find a beer.'

  'You don't come with us?' Erica shrill and close.

  ' I have my own way out.' The smile wiped from Johnny's face.

  'Who will be in the car?'

  'Germans, who work for us. They have the paperwork for you to have been travelling with them from West Berlin. You are from Frankfurt . . .

  you have been to see an aunt in Berlin, what you like. It's very straightforward.'

  'Why don't you come with us ?'

  'He does not come with us,' Otto Guttmann said quietly, 'because if it is not straightforward he does not wish the involvement of being in our company . . .'

  'That's nonsense . . . four is enough in the car, and a foreigner would only complicate.'

  Johnny edged a little way from them. Not the time for a debate on the plan, he should separate himself. His gaze was on the gap between the bushes and the upper curve of the approach road. Waiting for the car, for the transport. He checked his watch. He was very tense and his legs were cold and numb. Staring into the darkness for flashing head- lights. He was half aware of the low pitched conversation behind him, what they would do the next morning. Warm baths and newspapers, and talking to Willi and whether there might be a church service they could attend, and with Erica gone what would happen to the cat at the laboratory at Padolsk. How Erica would need new clothes and Otto Guttmann would need money.

  Bloody innocents, Johnny thought, like a couple of kids from the provinces going to London for the weekend.

  Again he looked at the luminous face of his watch. Come on you bastards you're not going to be bloody late, are you? Not tonight. Please God, not late tonight.

  It was easy for them in the approaching car to see Carter.

  The floodlights on the tall stanchions at either side of the road highlighted him as he stood in front of the two storey building, and beneath the sign. 'Allied Check Point'. The rooms were bright behind him and a Military Policeman sometimes came to the window and wondered at the presence of the bald and elderly Englishman who waited patiently while the traffic ran steadily past him from west to east.

  Some strange beggars came at night to Alpha, he would have thought.

  They parked the car behind the Bundesgrenzschutz pass- port control and walked the last few yards to Carter. Pierce was spruced in a three piece cement grey suit, a closed rose bud at his buttonhole. Willi trailing but with an eagerness in his face and a bounce in his step. George was a pace behind the boy and dressed as if for winter, a roll neck sweater under the leather coat.

  'The road was foul, that's why we're late. Have you spoken to Mawby?'

  Pierce asked Carter.

  Willi stood a little away from them. Clean in his new clothes, fresh with the air on his face, hair waving and falling.

  ' I tried to call him earlier. He wasn't on the HQ number . . . but that was some time ago . . . I've been stuck here waiting for you, I didn't want to go off to chase a phone in case they came through early.'

  ' I'd give a fair bit to know if they took off from Berlin on time.'

  Willi motionless, Willi peering into the growing lights that edged forward from the far cluster of the Marienborn checkpoint across the shallow valley, across the line of the watch- towers and the wire and the whitewashed strip on the road that wheels had worn to a smudge.

  'They could be here any time now,' Carter said.

  'Did you leave a number where you could be reached?'

  'Berlin Military know I'm at Alpha. Mawby will be beside the phone later, when I report the arrival.'

  Willi with his hands clasped, his trousers pressed, shoes cleaned. Willi watching the cars approaching across no- man's land.

  Pierce turned his wrist, looked down at his watch. 'Shouldn't they have been here by now?'

  'They might have been, but they're not late yet.'

  The door of the building flew open, spilling out light, bathing the faces of the men who waited, tensed faces, harassed tired faces. The Military Police corporal hesitated.

  'Excuse me, gentlemen ... is one of you a Mr Carter?'

  'Yes, it's me.'

  'You're wanted on thephone, sir. A Mr Smithson, in Berlin.'

  Carter shrugged, went into the doorway, disappeared from Pierce's sight.

  Willi saw him go . . . Wil
li with the stress at his mouth, the flicking wet tongue. Willi with the picture of his father bulging in his mind. Not knowing which car to watch for, restless, pacing.

  'Where the hell have you been?' shouted Smithson, distant and furious, and in Berlin.

  'I'm at Alpha. . .'

  ' I know you're at bloody Alpha now. Why didn't you call in?'

  ' I did and nobody knew where to find Mawby.'

  The Military Police in the office turned their heads away from Carter as his face flushed and his forehead knitted in anger. In front of the electric fire their alsatian dog stirred, cocked its ears towards the raised voices.

  'What a fucking shambles . . . not that it matters now, it's off. . .'

  'What's off?'

  'What do you bloody think? The run's off . . . Do you want it in one syllable words? It's off, there's no fucking car coming. They've knocked off the pick-up merchant coming through the border . ..'

  'How?'

  'About the least relevant question you could ask on an open line, Carter.

  Just take it from me, no car has left Berlin, no car is gong to leave. It's finished, the whole thing.'

  'What am I supposed to do, what does Mawby say?'

  'Find yourself a fat frau and a bottle of whisky, that's my advice .. .

  Mawby's past answering questions like that.'

  Carter put the telephone down. He thanked the Military Police corporal for coming to look for him.

  Carter stepped back into the night wind, into the drone of the traffic, into the shadow of the high lights.

  Willi was watching him. Willi would know. A bloody idiot could see the message, read it from the way he lurched across the concrete, from the way he winced his eyes, from his sunken shoulders, from the way he stumbled to Pierce's side. Willi staring, Willi absorbing.

  'The car's not left. . .'

  'Cutting it fine, aren't they?' Pierce had not looked at him, still peered up the road.

  "... and it's not coming. Not now, not ever.'